NY City Diversity Committee Says Programs for Gifted Students Are 'Racist'

A school diversity committee formed by Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to eliminate programs for gifted and talented students, claiming they perpetuate racial inequality because they’re comprised mostly of white and Asian students.

The committee also recommended scrapping all forms of screening for students across the city.

The report has no binding power, but de Blasio can implement the panel's recommendations if he wishes.

New York Post:

De Blasio only said of the report Monday, “Every child, regardless of ZIP code, has the right to attend a school where they can thrive. “I thank the School Diversity Advisory Group for all their hard work to promote equity and excellence across our system, and I look forward to reviewing their recommendations. ”

Carranza added, “We’re going to review their recommendations and take action to ensure all students have access to a rich and rigorous education.”

After the lip service to quality education, what's really at stake here? Perhaps we should be asking about the legitimacy of these programs.

But the schools chancellor has already openly questioned the legitimacy of gifted-and-talented programs, including to a group of Queens parents in February. “When you have over 35% of your students be designated as gifted and talented, we need to bottle the water we’re drinking and ship it all over the place,” he said sarcastically. “Because that is far beyond the percentage of gifted and talented that, from a statistical perspective, should be found in the population.”

Backers of the current system counter that it rewards diligence and accommodates families of advanced kids who would otherwise abandon the public school system altogether.

And proponents of gifted-and-talented programs and other screens note that many top city schools have significant populations of poor immigrants.

The bottom line is lower standards, making "gifted and talented" hollow words, indeed.

Still, the efficacy of having gifted and talented programs cannot be denied. When some students are being held back from learning by others, there is a need to recognize talent and nurture it by designing a curriculum that will challenge a gifted student -- regardless of race.

But the implications of this report are worrying. Are we now to penalize students of some races because kids of other races aren't doing as well? The inescapable conclusion is that schools must strive to achieve standards that meet the lowest common denominator, and not strive to meet the highest standards.

When explanations for why some students of some races do better than others become knee-jerk accusations of racism, schools will never improve.

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Mandatory teacher training denigrates Christianity, exalts islam

Sickening: Christian scriptures described as “corrupted” while the Koran contains the “pure” word of God

A Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan revealed deeply concerning information on a mandatory two-day teacher training session on Islam conducted for public school teachers in the state which denigrated Christianity while presenting Islam in an exclusively positive light.

“We found that the teachers were subjected to two days of Islamic propaganda, where Islam was glorified, Christianity disparaged, and America bashed—all funded by Novi taxpayers,” explained Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel at the Thomas More Law Center. He noted that the school district had not sponsored teacher trainings on Christianity, Judaism, or other religions over the past five years, but solely on Islam.

The “cultural competency” expert hired by the Novi Community Schools District in Michigan is Huda Essa of Culture Links LLC, a hijab-wearing woman of Arab descent. After examining numerous documents relating to Essa’s presentation including audio transcripts from her talk, the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) found that “information on Islam she provided to Novi teachers was riddled with falsehoods and errors of omission that were clearly meant to deceive.”

During the two-day training session, Essa “spent a great deal of time in her Novi presentation talking about Muslim women, whom she described as victims of Islamophobia on the part of bigoted Americans,” explains a press release from the TMLC. She described cases where hijab-wearing Muslim women have been attacked or killed for their religious dress but provided no details on when or where these attacks occurred. As the Thomas More Law Center pointed out in its release, “anti-Muslim attacks are relatively rare in America and actually fell by 17 percent in 2017” while “Anti-Jewish hate crimes that year out-numbered anti-Muslim offenses by nearly four to one.”

Essa also claimed that mistreatment of women in Islamic countries is due only to “cultural” differences, and not to the Islamic religion itself, which in fact dictates radically different rules for men and women.

Her presentation repeatedly portrayed Christianity in a negative light, claiming that the Christian scriptures were “corrupted” over time whereas the Koran contains the true and “pure” word of God. Claiming that Christianity and Islam are “mostly similar,” she also asserted that Islam is in fact the world’s “only purely monotheistic religion.”

Teachers attending the training session were taught to believe in a whitewashed version of Islam. Essa told those in attendance that the word “Islam” is a variation on the Arabic word “salaam” which means peace. As the TMLC points out, Islam is more accurately translated as “submission,” since Muslims must submit to Allah and Sharia law before all other authorities. She also described the phrase “Allahu Abkar” as a refrain used to convey strong emotions; she did not mention that this same phrase is used as a battle-cry by Islamic terrorists conducting attacks.

The problematic presentation on Islam was not limited to one Michigan school district. Essa’s website lists nine separate school districts in Michigan as clients and also public schools, colleges and professional organizations in numerous other states including California, Texas, Georgia, and Florida. For the two-day presentation for the Novi Community Schools District, Essa’s organization was paid $5,000. The Freedom of Information Act requests filed by the TMLC further revealed that the district did not fully vet Essa before allowing her to conduct the mandatory training, nor did they conduct a factual analysis of her claims. In spite of the school district’s limited screening process, Essa was given access to data from student and faculty surveys.

“This type of infiltration amounts to an Islamic Trojan horse within our public-school systems,” Thompson of the Thomas More Law Center said. “No other religion gets this kind of special treatment in our schools.”

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Father's Day no longer promoted in some Australian schools

The Father's Day stall and gifts for Dad crafted by little hands are increasingly a thing of the past in some Melbourne schools and kindergartens.

The growing diversity in the forms that families take, and a lack of interest in the occasion from kids themselves, have seen it pass without a mention in many classes this year.

Some kids have two mums, some have no dad and some are from cultures where Father’s Day isn’t really a thing.

Annie Dennis Children’s Centre in Northcote recognises the diversity in children’s family situations. For the past 20 years, child-guided programs have formed a fundamental part of its philosophy.

Assistant director Anna Chiera said they did not celebrate Father’s Day this year because kids simply weren’t interested.

“We don’t bring up Father’s Day because there are children with single and same-sex parents here, but if it’s an issue for them, we encourage them to let us know,” Ms Chiera said.

“We don’t like to put pressure on the children to make a present if it isn’t going to mean something and they don’t have a father or their families don’t celebrate it.”

“We acknowledge that it’s an important celebration though.”

Helen Darcey, a kindergarten teacher at Annie Dennis, said the centre had a list of celebrations from different religions and cultures they encouraged kids to learn about and contribute to.

In the past they’ve celebrated everything from Orthodox Easter to Harmony Day, but typically not Father’s Day.

Ms Chiera conceded they did get the occasional parent who asked why they didn't make a card, but for the most part they were supportive.

“It’s sometimes harder for the wider community to accept it especially,” Ms Chiera said.

An objection to the commercialisation of Father’s Day – a day of socks, jocks and power tools – has also contributed to it falling out of favour.

Australian Primary Principals Association president Malcolm Elliott said Father’s and Mother’s Day had been linked to the “implicit buying of gifts” thanks to advertising.

“It can place a burden on children who are short on resources,” Mr Elliot said.

But not all Melbourne kinders and primary schools have completely ditched Father’s Day festivities.

Carlton North Primary School ran things a bit differently, with a Father’s Day stall organised by parents selling gifts donated from families for students to buy their dads or other special people.

A grade one pupil bought her dad, a teacher at the school, a hamper filled with chocolate and socks. “I got him new socks because his ones are very stinky,” she said.

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